Various organizations often desire to enable user access to, and interaction with, various functions of various mobile devices. Mobile devices can include smartphones, electronic readers, computing tablets, and similar processor-based electronic consumer devices. Such access and interaction can be desired to enable a user to become familiarized with various mobile device functions, to test various mobile device functions, including programs of instruction, to showcase various mobile device functions
Such users may be unable to easily acquire and interact directly with a tangible mobile device. For example, a user may include a customer service agent who is communicating over a communication network. The user may not possess the mobile device, although familiarization with the various functions of the device may be desired. Similarly, a user may include a developer of one or more mobile device programs of instruction, including one or more mobile device applications, who desires to test such applications in a mobile device environment but may not possess such a mobile device. In another example, a user may include a prospective customer who wishes to “test drive” various aspects of a mobile device prior to making a decision to purchase the mobile device, despite not having physical access to an article of the mobile device. In another example, a user may include a customer service agent who desires to access a mobile device to guide a customer through a set of mobile device interactions to troubleshoot issues with a mobile device. In another example, a user may include one or more students in a classroom that desire to access a mobile device for educational purposes.
In some cases, simulators and emulators are provided to a user, via a display of a user-supporting computer system, to potentially enable the above access and interaction. Simulators can respond to user-initiated interactions, including user commands provided via an interface of the computer supporting the user, by presenting a simulated interface of the mobile device on the display. The simulated interface may present a simulation of the mobile device interface based on the interactions. For example, where the user provides a command to execute a particular mobile device application, the simulator may present a simulation of the mobile device interface that would be presented on a complete mobile device display executing the application. Simulated interfaces are often simply generated images (“screenshots”) of the mobile device interface and may not provide a true representation of the mobile device interface experience to the user.
Emulators may provide an interactive mobile device interface on the display of the user's computer, where the user can interact with the display to command execution of various mobile device functions and be presented with an interactive mobile device interface based on the commands. A mobile device emulator can be executed in the user's computer, in another network-linked computer, etc., as virtual machines in a computer that simulate the actual functionality of the mobile device. However, because a mobile device may utilize different operating systems than the computer implementing the emulation of the mobile device, interpretations of mobile device functions by the implementing computer may reduce performance of the mobile device functionality from the user's perspective, as the computer implementing the emulation may be required to translate user commands to be interpreted by the emulated mobile device, translate mobile device output to be presented to the user, etc. In addition, because some actual mobile devices may include hardware components that are optimized to execute mobile device programs associated with the device, an emulator of the mobile device may be incapable of providing an exact replication of the functionality of a complete mobile device.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.